men. And so the dormant Mirage pilot in me apparently woke up and overrode the squadron rules of engagement.
According to those rules—which I had set down and enforced with an iron hand in our squadron—there was no excuse for a dogfight now. I should have let that MiG alone and led my men home. But he was right in my sights. But I was not thinking clearly at that moment.
Instead of sneaking away and racing south, I put my Phantom’s nose on that MiG, and when he—who had much more speed and momentum than I—left the other Phantoms and turned back to me, I didn’t run away. He pulled up, and I lifted my nose to him, too, and we began the invitation to the dance. Probably deep in my heart I thought I would finish him off quickly and catch up to the formation on the way home.
Big mistake.
Major Goren, who was a senior reserve pilot and a cool customer, saw it all and wanted to help me out. But I had very little wisdom in me at that moment. I instructed him harshly to take command of the formation and take them home. Goren complied, and they vanished quickly into the darkness that was beginning to fill the hills and brooks below.
Erel and I remained behind, riding our Phantom No. 10, against a MiG deep in Syria. So began the duel in which I met for the first time a rival who was my equal.
All conditions were in his favor. We were far away from safety and limited on fuel, while our opponent was just a few kilometers from his home base. Already at the start, the Syrian had considerable advantage in speed over me. And finally, he was flying a MiG-21, a lightweight, agile fighter—the Mirage kind—while we were flying a Phantom, which by nature is a heavy, sluggish, and unforgiving machine. And worst of all, no one could guarantee that that MiG would remain alone in this fight. Fortunately for me this last threat never materialized.
The moment he turned ferociously on me I realized this wasn’t going to be easy. A second later we were stuck there with the MiG, and all that was left for Erel and me was to call on all our strength and fight for our lives.
THE HOUR WAS LATE, AND THE SUN had just touched the horizon on its way down. The dominant landmark in the area was Jebel Druze, the Mountain of the Druze. This is a large, black mountain. Our struggle began over the eastern slope of that mountain. The sun went down behind it and disappeared over its crest, and we were soon in the shade. It was that beautiful hour of twilight when all is peaceful and the light of the world is soft and gentle.
The MiG used his extra momentum for a tight turn, and began closing on us from behind. I let him come in, and when he came close enough I used Yak’s old trick of stopping my Phantom in the air abruptly, hoping to throw the MiG in front of me. The Syrian was surprised, but he was an excellent pilot. He lifted his nose almost vertically and reared his stallion, too, right along with us. Now we both were flying together almost in close formation, both very slow, “standing in the air” on our engine downwash. Both our noses were raised high up, and we both were at the limit of our ability to hold the air, slowly sinking down on our tails. Luckily we were over the mountain slope— sinking together with the descending slope.
We hovered side by side, crossing each other’s path and the distance between us shrinking and opening alternately. In pilot lingo this is called a scissors. It’s a maneuver in which the slower of the two should eventually win, after his opponent gets in front, into killing range. It’s a tough struggle. Whoever lets his aircraft loose even for a second loses his life. You slow your aircraft to its minimum speed—just above a stall—and hold it there, turning and twisting, on the verge of losing stability before a tailspin. You have to maintain this attitude in order not to go forward. At very slow speeds the lift on the wings decreases and aerodynamic drag overcomes the engine thrust, causing the aircraft to sink.
All in all, the scissors is a very difficult and dangerous maneuver, at the edge of flight limits, where both fight stubbornly against each other and the laws of aerodynamics. It can be compared to wrestling on a tightrope: besides your rival, the abyss also waits for you. But the problem is that once you are in this situation, it’s very hard to get out. Whoever tries to escape shows his tail to his enemy. As a rule, getting into a scissors with an enemy fighter is a mistake. One-on-one duels between hot contenders tend to develop that way, but smart pilots do their best to avoid it. Once in a scissors, you are out of alternatives. The fight becomes about superior aircraft handling, and you are tested not on brains but on who flies his aircraft better and on the willpower of the pilots.
So we struggled on, fighting and sinking down the slope, toward the foot of the mountain, both of us skimming those black rocks very, very closely.
The Phantom has an advantage however; it knows well how to “stand in the air,” supported by the power of its two great engines. On the other hand, it is a very heavy aircraft, and it has terrible difficulty maneuvering at low speeds. But lightweight fighters such as the MiG and the Mirage maintain a certain maneuverability even in such conditions. As result, we were standing in the air, and the MiG maneuvered around us. Our situation was not good.
Just then, Erel called my attention to the most amazing sight I ever saw: both aircraft were digging up the ground with the streams of fire from our tailpipes. The afterburners blasted down, licking the black rocks and raising huge pillars of dust. For some time we struggled among those pillars, and the MiG’s afterburner exhaust—which in the dark around us shone like a long, sharp tongue mottled with blue and orange lines—was dimming beyond a pillar and reappearing, illuminating the whole temple around us. So we hovered and ducked among those dust columns like two fireflies playing hide-and-seek on a lawn, twisting around stalks of grass.
This was a singular moment, one of the few in which there is no story, when “before” and “after” vanish. Only the moment remains.
THE MIG AND WE WERE TOTALLY exhausted, hovering side by side on the verge of stalling, sinking down along that slope. The slope kept us airborne, but was a limited playground—we were getting near the foot of the mountain, and there, on the plain, there was going to be a decision. Any mistake would be fatal. I was very tense. My hands clutched the stick and the throttle; my movements were stiff.
Erel totally understood the pressure I was under, and worried that I might lose my nerve and do something rash. He said to me on the intercom, “Take it easy, Iftach, be cool.” And this was the turning point. I relaxed. Erel helped me overcome the nervous impulse to tighten my turn toward the MiG, who was trying to turn his nose toward my tail. Had I done that, I would have been competing with him on his terms. I would have lost the last of the lift on my wings, and we would have spun out and crashed there in Syria.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself of the training fights against the Mirages. I forced myself to relax, forget the MiG, and concentrate only on my own actions. I stopped fighting against the MiG, focused on my Phantom No. 10, and flew him the best he’d ever been flown. Since we had no way to copy the MiG’s agile maneuvers, we did the opposite and “gave some air”—not too much—to those wide wings of our Phantom. I softened my hold on the stick and rudder pedals, and when No. 10 breathed air again—just a little—it was out of the question to let him go forward very much, but this little bit was enough; I could once again lift his nose up, then higher, and then, standing even more erect on our engine plumes, I turned very gently, very carefully aside, using only the foot pedals, the way Tsutsik used to stall-turn the Harvard. And when the big aircraft realized that I was giving him the best flying of my life, he also relaxed, stopped trembling and vibrating, and was suddenly sailing along with sleek, gentle movements. We merged into one, and our Phantom breathed air and showed us he could do better than I ever expected. Gradually, turn by turn, he began overpowering the MiG, cutting it off with delicate, cruel resoluteness and attaining degrees in the curve. My Phantom flew as well and as comfortably as any Mirage.
Suddenly Hassan realized what was happening and was terrified. His movements became erratic, and he began to be thrown meter after meter forward. And then, when we began gaining that advantage, I knew we were going to beat him.
Once or twice, when the MiG crossed in front of me, I fired my cannon in its general direction. I was unable to aim with my nose pointed high in the sky above it. Had I lowered the nose even one degree we would have gone all the way to the ground. But I fired over his head so that he could see the flashes and would know we meant business. And it worked. The Syrian pilot, who until that moment was flying well indeed, got even more frightened and pulled in his reins for a hard stop. The air on the MiG’s wingtips whirled like heated glass. He, who flew a single-seater and had no one like my Yoni Erel, had lost his nerve.
